Occurrence of exotic plant species in oil palm dominated landscapes with embedded rainforest remnants in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, 2019

Field surveys were conducted in July to October 2017 and February to April 2019. The 21 sites were all in Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil-certified oil palm plantations. Rainforest remnants, where the forest transects were conducted, were mostly isolated forest fragments (n=15 sites) and six sites were connected to larger tracts of forest reserves outside the oil palm plantation boundary.

At each site, exotic plants were surveyed along 100 m transect in up to four habitats, oil palm (n=21 transects), forest-oil palm edge (n=21), disturbed forest (n=20) and intact forest (n=16). Four rainforest remnants were very small and disturbed and therefore had no ‘intact forest’ and in one site the forest interior was not accessible. All plants were identified to species and their exotic status confirmed with the help of experienced local botanists and species lists compiled from literature. In total 18 exotic species were recorded, made up of forbs, climbers and shrubs, no exotic trees were detected and graminoids were not included due to difficulties with identification. Intentionally planted exotic species (i.e. leguminous cover crop, Calopogonium mucunoides) were also excluded.

The dataset also includes measurements of forest structure (e.g. canopy cover and number of native large trees) along the length of each transect.

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This dataset is included in the following collections

Floristic community and aboveground carbon storage in fragmented and continuous forest, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo